Tip-Top Roys - 1899 Final: Fitz v South Melb

The 'Roys were warm favourites but South Melbourne were desperate to make a game of it. John Devaney looks back at the first VFL Grand Final "thriller".

[Principal Source: 'The Argus', Monday 18 September 1899]

“The rain prevented anything like a crowd at the St Kilda ground on Saturday, but the 4,000 or 5,000
people who braved the elements, and came out armed with overcoats and umbrellas, were amply
rewarded for their pains by seeing a magnificent tussle. From the first bounce to the very last tinkle of
the bell it was a battle between two earnest, strong teams, and the crowd entered into the excitement,
and what it lacked in numbers it made up in enthusiasm. Many thought that the adverse weather
committee would have stepped in, but they decided to let the game go on. South Melbourne would have
preferred a postponement, but Fitzroy wanted to get the game over, and would not consent.”

Reigning VFL premiers Fitzroy were warmly favoured to secure successive flags after winning
14 of their 17 matches prior to the grand final. Fourteen of these matches came during a
conventional home and away series in which the eight league clubs faced each other twice,
and Fitzroy, with an 11-3 record, finished at the head of the ladder. The Roys won both of their
encounters with South Melbourne during that time: resoundingly at home in round 4 (6.19 to
3.4), and narrowly in round 11 at the Lake Oval (5.9 to 4.9, after scores had been tied at the
last change).

The eight clubs were then split into two round robin sections of four clubs each,
which played each of the three other clubs in their section once. The two
section winners then met in the final, with the team that had finished at the top of
the ladder at the end of the home and away rounds having the right to challenge
the winner of this match (unless, of course, it was itself the winner, in which case
it won the premiership).

Both Fitzroy and South Melbourne won all three of their round robin matches,
the Roys over Carlton, Melbourne and Collingwood by 1, 38 and 14 points
respectively, and South over Geelong (by 3 points), St Kilda (70 points), and
Essendon (15 points). The southerners, who had won only 5 of their 14 home
and away matches to finish 6th knew that they would be required to defeat
Fitzroy twice in order to claim the flag. This would be an extremely difficult task,
as Fitzroy had won the last 4 meetings between the teams, most of them
resoundingly, and were widely acknowledged as, by some measure, the most
accomplished team in football at the time. Boasting players of the calibre of
follower Mick Grace (1899 Argus Player of the Year), centre half back Pat
Hickey, rover Billy McSpeerin, centre half forward Fred Fontaine, full forward
Geoff Moriarty, and full forward Jim Grace (left) they had strength on every line, and
their success rate of 81.1% over two seasons was significantly better than that
of any other league club.

South, too, had many fine players, including centre half forward Harold Lampe, follower Mick
Pleass, wingman Herb Howson, and key defenders Dave Adamson and Charlie Goding, but
the general consensus was that, overall, they lacked both the experience and the panache of
the Roys.

The Teams

Fitzroy were without key forward Bert Sharpe, whose father had died the previous day,
and in consequence of which all the players in the team wore black arm bands
Chris Kiernan was initially selected to replace Sharpe, but when he failed to show up,
Bill 'Bice' Cleary was asked to strip instead.
Art Henley, who injured himself during the pre-match warm-up, and Harry Purdy were
absentees for South Melbourne, while Pleass, Bill Fraser and Henri Jeanerrett all carried
injuries into the game.

How The Teams Lined Up

FITZROY

B:

H. McEwan

G. Moriarty

E. Jenkins

HB:

J. Deas

P. Hickey

A. Sloan (C)

C:

E. Drohan

H. Clarke

K. Robinson

HF:

P. Descrimes

F. Fontaine

W. Dalton

F:

A. McDougall

J. Grace

W. Cleary

FOLL:

M. Grace

W. Potter

W. McSpeerin

SOUTH MELBOURNE

B:

W. Armstrong

D. Adamson (C)

F. O'Hara

HB:

G. Davidson

C. Goding

A. Trimm

C:

H. Howson

W. Windley

J. O'Hara

HF:

H. Jeanneret

H. Lampe

C. James

F:

A. Henley

C. Colgan

W. Fraser

FOLL:

M. Pleass

J. Garbutt

R. Bryce

1st Quarter

Rain was falling steadily as the players ran out, and there was a strong breeze from the
Elwood end, favouring the city goal. Adamson of South, having won the toss, elected to
kick with the aid of this breeze.

From the initial bounce South Melbourne moved swiftly into attack.
Fitzroy, particularly through Hickey and Jack Deas, defended stoutly, but
South persisted and Lampe, from a free, posted the first score of the
game, a goal. Two South supporters behind the goal were wielding
immense red and white umbrellas, which they waved triumphantly as the
ball sailed through – a sight that would become quite familiar during the
course of the game, though perhaps not quite so much as the South
fraternity might have wished.

South’s Howson, on a wing, was a particularly prominent presence early
on, several times outmarking and outpacing his direct opponent Eddie
Drohan. It was somewhat ironic therefore that Drohan’s first major
involvement, as he teamed well with McSpeerin (right), almost brought an
equalising goal for the Roys. After receiving the ball back on a ‘one-two’
from McSpeerin, Drohan’s probing kick found Jim Grace, whose running
snap shot from an angle looked to be going through for a goal, only to
end up striking the post, to the accompaniment of groans from the
Fitzroy contingent in the outer.

On the whole, however, South seemed sharper than Fitzroy, with Joe Garbutt, Howson,
Jeanerrett and Lampe continually in the thick of it. Lampe it was who nabbed South’s
second major, and he might well have had more goals during this term if his kicking had
been more penetrative.

Fitzroy repeatedly ruined their attempted counter forays with fumbling, over-elaboration,
and slipshod disposal, while the southerners, by contrast, teamed well together. The
bell rang with South 14 points to the good, having sent out a clear message to their
opponents that they were not going to surrender the 1899 flag without a titanic struggle.

Quarter Time: South Melbourne 2.3 (15); Fitzroy 0.1 (1)

2nd Quarter

At the start of the second term Adamson strengthened South’s backlines by deploying
half forward flanker Charlie James as an additional defender.

South resumed the second quarter as they had ended the first, seeming quicker to the
ball than the Roys, as well as more decisive and neater in their movements. They went
straight into attack from the opening bounce, but Deas made a telling last gasp save for
Fitzroy, who then surged into attack themselves. The attack culminated in Alf
McDougall seemingly soccering a goal, only for umpire Crapp to concur with South
defender Adamson, who claimed that the ball had struck his arm while in transit. A
single flag, accordingly, was raised by the goal umpire, amidst a chorus of catcalls from
the Fitzroy supporters.

South spent the next few minutes of the game adopting rugby tactics by
repeatedly, and quite deliberately, kicking the ball out of bounds, mainly
along the St Kilda road wing, which was the defensive side of the ground
from their perspective.

The southerners continued to seem the stronger side, but Hickey, at half
back for the Roys, was “irresistible”, and made it extremely hard for them
to advance into a scoring position.

Play began to get willing, and there were some signs of temper as Fitzroy's
Kelly Robinson, Cleary and Jack Dalton, in turn, were warned by the
umpire for rough play.

As the term wore on, Fitzroy gradually started to assert themselves more,
but two successive behinds to skipper Alec Sloan, who had moved onto
the ball from his half back flank, were all that they could muster until a
concerted rush engineered by Hickey culminated in Mick Grace goaling
with a trademark hefty punt kick.

South’s tactic of ‘kicking to touch’ saw them concede many free kicks, but these tended
to be much too far from goal to cause concern. Finally, however, a clever piece of play
by the Fitzroy small men enabled Mick Grace to break clear and send an excellent pass
to Fontaine (left), who marked, and then goaled.

South hit back strongly, but they continued to find Hickey, who “was skirmishing behind
the ruck like a rugby half back”, impassable, and at the long break Fitzroy had captured
a one-point advantage.

Half Time: Fitzroy 2.4 (16); South Melbourne 2.3 (15)

3rd Quarter

The Maroons were straight into attack after the opening bounce of the
third term, but Goding (right) and Howson combined to repel them and launch
a counter-offensive which ended with a spectacular snapshot from
Lampe “which deserved a better fate than a behind”. Colgan eventually
got South Melbourne’s third goal when he was freed after being pushed
in the back by Ernie Jenkins.

Midway through the third term the rain relented briefly for the first time,
but when it resumed it was more torrential than ever.

For the remainder of the quarter, neither side managed to make a
decisive breakthrough, but it was “grand football”, and the small crowd
was thoroughly immersed in it. When the bell rang the southerners had
established a seven-point advantage.

Three Quarter Time: South Melbourne 3.7 (25); Fitzroy 2.6 (18)

4th Quarter

During the three quarter time break the wind strengthened “and a nasty drifting rain
came in”. South opened the final term brightly, only for Hickey to inspire a swift and
purposeful response from the Roys, which yielded a couple of behinds.

From fully 90 yards, Lampe went for goal using a place kick, but the ball
fell well short, and was marked, almost inevitably, by Hickey. Fitzroy
then maneuvered the ball the length of the ground, with McSpeerin
marking just in front of the behind post. Before South’s defenders knew
what was happening the Roys rover had played on and kicked truly to
put his side ahead by the narrowest of margins. Another Fitzroy behind
followed shortly after to Fontaine, and then South mounted a strong
rally, which culminated in Lampe taking a mark well within range only for
his kick to be touched off the boot by the man standing on the mark,
Mick Grace, a minor score resulting. Shortly afterwards, another shot
from Lampe was marked near the goal line by Sloan, who galloped off
before passing to Drohan, whose thumping clearance put the ball well
out of danger. This proved to be the last significant action of the game,
as Fitzroy managed to bottle play up near the centre of the ground for
the remainder of the quarter, amidst the increasingly frantic shrieks and
yells of both sets of supporters.

Final score: Fitzroy 3.9 (27); South Melbourne 3.8 (26)

Best afield, by some measure, was Hickey. “Nominally he was half-back; as a matter of
fact, he was everywhere, forcing when forcing was needed, and defending when
defence was required. He took all the bumps too.”

Rover McSpeerin was “cool and
clever as ever”. Others to do well for the Roys included Deas, Drohan, Jenkins and
Henry Clarke,